Effect of Age, Elbow Muscle Co-Contraction Level, and Elbow Moment Loading Charachteristics on Elbow Angle Positional Variability in Postural Tasks.

Hand positional variability during a task confounds many activities of daily living, such as inserting a key into a lock, pouring hot water into a cup, and eating with a spoon. Current dogma suggests that older adults use increased co-contraction to attenuate hand positional variability; however, this has not been proven. This thesis proposes that elbow muscle co-contraction significantly affects elbow angle positional variability (PV), which affects hand positional variability, and that older adults can reduce their PV by decreasing their co-contraction level. Variable muscle stiffness was incorporated into the Signal Dependent Noise Theory to model the effect of elbow muscle co-contraction on predicted PV during a quasistatic elbow flexion task. The results demonstrated an optimal level of co-contraction that minimized the positional variability for both variable and constant loading paradigms. The first experiment tested the effect of greater than natural elbow muscle co-contraction levels on PV. Fourteen younger and 14 older healthy adults resisted both constant and variable external elbow extension moments while co-contracting at different levels. Increasing co-contraction was found to increase positional variability for both younger and older adults (p < 0.005). Older adults naturally co-contracted at higher levels and had lower positional variability than younger adults (p < 0.005). The second experiment tested the effect of below-natural elbow muscle co-contraction levels on PV in 14 younger and 14 older healthy adults. The effect of age was not significant in predicting positional variability at the lowered co-contraction level. In the third experiment, 12 younger and 14 older healthy adults poured water through different sized container openings. Older subjects co-contracted at higher levels and had lower PV than younger adults. While co-contraction increased with decreasing target size, increased co-contraction within a pouring target size increased PV (p < 0.05) and decreased pouring accuracy (p < 0.001). We conclude that increasing elbow muscle co-contraction increases PV and hinders the performance of tasks, such as pouring, that require low positional variability. This counters the current belief that high co-contraction levels are beneficial for task performance, and suggests that people who struggle with these tasks may benefit from reduced co-contraction.Ph.D.Mechanical EngineeringUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/91474/1/mtgordon_1.pd

Accurate Ab Initio Potential Energy Curve of F2. III. The Vibration Rotation Spectrum

An analytical expression is found for the accurate ab initiopotential energy curve of the fluorine molecule that has been determined in the preceding two papers. With it, the vibrational and rotational energy levels of F2 are calculated using the discrete variable representation. The comparison of this theoretical spectrum with the experimental spectrum, which had been measured earlier using high-resolution electronic spectroscopy, yields a mean absolute deviation of about 5cm−1 over the 22 levels. The dissociation energy with respect to the lowest vibrational energy is calculated within 30cm−1 of the experimental value of 12953±8cm−1. The reported agreement of the theoretical spectrum and dissociation energy with experiment is contingent upon the inclusion of the effects of core-generated electron correlation,spin-orbit coupling, and scalar relativity. The Dunham analysis [Phys. Rev.41, 721 (1932)] of the spectrum is found to be very accurate. New values are given for the spectroscopic constants

Optimizing Conical Intersections of Solvated Molecules: The Combined Spin-Flip Density Functional Theory/Effective Fragment Potential Method

Solvent effects on a potential energy surface crossing are investigated by optimizing a conical intersection (CI) in solution. To this end, the analytic energy gradient has been derived and implemented for the collinear spin-flip density functional theory (SFDFT) combined with the effective fragment potential (EFP) solvent model. The new method is applied to the azomethane-water cluster and the chromophore of green fluorescent protein in aqueous solution. These applications illustrate not only dramatic changes in the CI geometries but also strong stabilization of the CI in a polar solvent. Furthermore, the CI geometries obtained by the hybrid SFDFT/EFP scheme reproduce those by the full SFDFT, indicating that the SFDFT/EFP method is an efficient and promising approach for understanding nonadiabatic processes in solution

Solvent Effects on Optical Properties of Molecules: A Combined Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory/Effective Fragment Potential Approach

A quantum mechanics/molecular mechanics (QM/MM) type of scheme is employed to calculate the solvent-induced shifts of molecular electronic excitations. The effective fragment potential (EFP) method was used for the classical potential. Since EFP has a density dependent functional form, in contrast with most other MM potentials, time-dependent density functional theory (TDDFT) has been modified to combine TDDFT with EFP. This new method is then used to perform a hybrid QM/MM molecular dynamics simulation to generate a simulated spectrum of the n→π∗ vertical excitation energy of acetone in vacuum and with 100 water molecules. The calculated watersolvent effect on the vertical excitation energy exhibits a blueshift of the n→π∗ vertical excitation energy in acetone (Δω1=0.211 eV), which is in good agreement with the experimental blueshift

A new species of Magelona (Polychaeta: Magelonidae) from southern Namibia

A new species of Magelonidae, Magelona debeerei sp. nov., is described and illustrated from grab-samples collected at <100moff the southwest coast of Africa. Magelona debeerei sp. nov. has previously been identified from the region as M. papillicornis (Müller, 1858) by Day (1955, 1961, 1967) but differs from M. papillicornis sensu stricto by possessing dorsal medial lobes on chaetigers 4–8 and lateral pouches (Σ configuration) between chaetigers 10 and 11. Three species of Magelona have now been recorded from southern Africa (M. capensis Day, 1961, M. cincta Ehlers, 1908 and M. debeerei sp. nov.), and a key to Magelona from this region is provided

A Study of Water Clusters Using the Effective Fragment Potential and Monte Carlo Simulated Annealing

Simulated annealing methods have been used with the effective fragment potential to locate the lowest energy structures for the water clusters (H2O)n with n=6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, and 20. The most successful method uses a local minimization on each Monte Carlo step. The effective fragment potential method yielded interaction energies in excellent agreement with those calculated at the ab initio Hartree–Fock level and was quite successful at predicting the same energy ordering as the higher-level perturbation theory and coupled cluster methods. Analysis of the molecular interaction energies in terms of its electrostatic,polarization, and exchange-repulsion/charge-transfer components reveals that the electrostatic contribution is the dominant term in determining the energy ordering of the minima on the (H2O)n potential energy surfaces, but that differences in the polarization and repulsion components can be important in some cases

Budesonide Foam Has a Favorable Safety Profile for Inducing Remission in Mild-to-Moderate Ulcerative Proctitis or Proctosigmoiditis.

BackgroundBudesonide foam, a rectally administered, second-generation corticosteroid with extensive hepatic first-pass metabolism, is efficacious for the treatment of mild-to-moderate ulcerative proctitis and ulcerative proctosigmoiditis.AimThe aim of this study was to comprehensively assess the safety and pharmacokinetic profile of budesonide foam.MethodsData from five phase III studies were pooled to further evaluate safety, including an open-label study (once-daily treatment for 8 weeks), an active-comparator study (once-daily treatment for 4 weeks), and two placebo-controlled studies and an open-label extension study (twice-daily treatment for 2 weeks, then once daily for 4 weeks). Data from the placebo-controlled studies and two phase I studies (i.e., patients with mild-to-moderate ulcerative colitis and healthy volunteers) were pooled to evaluate the pharmacokinetics of budesonide foam.ResultsA similar percentage of patients reported adverse events in the budesonide foam and placebo groups, with the majority of adverse events being mild or moderate in intensity (93.3 vs 96.0%, respectively). Adverse events occurred in 41.4 and 36.3% of patients receiving budesonide foam and placebo, respectively. Mean morning cortisol concentrations remained within the normal range for up to 8 weeks of treatment; there were no clinically relevant effects of budesonide foam on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis. Population pharmacokinetic analysis demonstrated low systemic exposure after budesonide foam administration.ConclusionsThis integrated analysis demonstrated that budesonide foam for the induction of remission of distal ulcerative colitis is safe overall, with no clinically relevant effects on the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis

The Epidemiology of Staphylococcus aureus and Panton-Valentine Leucocidin (pvl) in Central Australia, 2006-2010

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.Background: The Central Australian Indigenous population has a high incidence of Staphylococcus aureus bacteremia (SAB) but little is known about the local molecular epidemiology. Methods: Prospective observational study of bacteremic and nasal colonizing S.aureus isolates between June 2006 to June 2010. All isolates underwent single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) genotyping and testing for the presence of the Panton-Valentine Leucocidin (pvl) gene. Results: Invasive isolates (n = 97) were predominantly ST93 (26.6 %) and pvl positive (54.3 %), which was associated with skin and soft tissue infections (OR 4.35, 95 % CI 1.16, 16.31). Non-multiresistant MRSA accounted for 31.9 % of bacteremic samples and showed a trend to being healthcare associated (OR 2.16, 95 % CI 0.86, 5.40). Non-invasive isolates (n = 54) were rarely ST93 (1.9 %) or pvl positive (7.4 %). Conclusions: In Central Australia, ST93 was the dominant S.aureus clone, and was frequently pvl positive and associated with an aggressive clinical phenotype. Whether non-nasal carriage is more important with invasive clones or whether colonization occurs only transiently remains to be elucidated

Excitation spectrum and instability of a two-species Bose-Einstein condensate

We numerically calculate the density profile and excitation spectrum of a two-species Bose-Einstein condensate for the parameters of recent experiments. We find that the ground state density profile of this system becomes unstable in certain parameter regimes, which leads to a phase transition to a new stable state. This state displays spontaneously broken cylindrical symmetry. This behavior is reflected in the excitation spectrum: as we approach the phase transition point, the lowest excitation frequency goes to zero, indicating the onset of instability in the density profile. Following the phase transition, this frequency rises again.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, uses REVTe